


What Should Have Been and Could Have Been

by la_muerta



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_muerta/pseuds/la_muerta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some time after the events of "Goodbye Stranger" (8x17), Castiel finds out about Meg's death. He goes to a park to be alone with his thoughts and grieve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Should Have Been and Could Have Been

“Cas, come on,” Sam said placatingly, laying a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was no doubt meant to comfort.

“Let go of me, Sam,” Cas bit out roughly, resisting the urge to shrug Sam’s hand off.

“There was nothing we could do, alright?” Dean barked out, running a hand through his hair. “We had our hands full with you disappearing with the angel tablet and that damned crypt falling around our ears, and we thought Meg had everything covered until Crowley-“

“I’m not blaming you,” Cas finally said, fighting to keep his voice even. “I know it was my fault.”

“Damn it, Cas, that’s not what I meant,” Dean sighed.

“She died protecting us, and I didn’t even know she was gone until now,” Cas continued bitterly, ignoring Dean.

“Look, she’s a tough one – how do you even know she’s gone?” Sam said hopefully. “I mean, demons were human once, and she kinda died a noble death. Maybe she’s in Heaven.”

“I wish that were possible, Sam,” Castiel said sadly. “She was a demon – her soul was so tormented after centuries in pain and darkness, there is just no coming back from that. Hell is done with her, and Heaven won’t have her – I’m afraid she is well and truly gone.”

“Purgatory?” Dean offered. “Where _do_ demons go when they die?”

“She wasn’t a monster,” Castiel bristled, his heart aching just to imagine Meg in that waking nightmare that had been Purgatory. “They are just… gone. Into the void.”

None of them seemed to have anything to say to that, and Cas gently removed Sam’s hand from his shoulder.

“I will be ok,” the angel said, his voice thick with emotion. “I just need some time alone.” With that, he disappeared from the bunker in the blink of an eye.

 

 

Castiel found himself wandering in a park and sat down heavily at a bench. The world still turned; they had averted the Apocalypse (apocalypses?) again and again, and life went on for most of the people and monsters and demons and angels that inhabited this planet. The Gates of Heaven and Hell were both still open, everything was status quo. Yet Castiel had the most irrational feeling that everything should come to a standstill because one peculiar demon - his caretaker, his _friend_ – was no more. Why did the bees and butterflies continue to flit among the flowers? Why did the people in the park, enjoying the last of the summer sunshine, continue to laugh and talk and breathe?

He was suddenly angry with everyone and everything, but most of all, he was so very angry with himself. Why hadn’t he felt something when Crowley had snuffed out that fiery spark, the one bright spot in the darkness that had taken over his mind during his period of insanity? He should have known, he should have protected her better, he should have saved her the way she had saved him countless times…

He closed his eyes, breathing deep. He tried not to imagine her pain and how alone she must have felt, having to face off Crowley alone while none of them had bothered to try to save her – again. She had endured so much for them, but already he knew that she would mock him relentlessly for this sorrow he was feeling, and call him out for what it truly was – this heartache he was feeling wasn’t for her, not really. In all likelihood, she was probably at peace, a peace there was no other way for a demon to achieve, a peace she wouldn’t have felt since she was human and sold her soul to Hell. It was a “self-pity fest”, as Dean would have called it. She was at rest, and he – he was cast adrift, mourning the loss of a connection that had touched him deeper than he had expected. As an Angel of the Lord, his kinship with his brethren and his Father should be enough to sustain him, but he had fallen and learnt humanity, and now he was all manner of fucked-up.

Would he have called it love, this connection between him and Meg? Could a demon feel love? Perhaps, given time, that strange attraction between them could have blossomed into something more.

He concentrated on the sounds of life around him, trying to ground himself back in this reality, when he heard her voice – that mellow, husky sound that fell unbearably sweet on his ears. Was he dreaming?

His head snapped up as he turned to the direction of the voice, and he felt his heart leap in his chest when he saw her. There she was, impossibly real, sitting under the summer sun with her dark curly hair flowing down her shoulder, her face younger than he remembered but smiling with that sly half-smirk that was forever seared into his memory. Sam and Dean must have been mistaken – Meg was alive…

And then reason caught up with his brain, pointing out details he had missed in the fever of his wishful thinking. The girl was a splitting image of Meg’s vessel, but she was definitely younger. She was wearing a pale yellow tank top and jeans, a light cardigan tied around her waist as she sat there in the grass with her friends, and she was laughing in a way Castiel had never seen Meg laugh. Worst of all, he now saw that the girl he had mistaken for Meg was completely human. Her soul shone through, innocent and clean. She had Meg’s vessel’s face, but what was gone was what had really made Meg – _his_ Meg – Meg. There was no twisted demon visage under that face, no pitch-dark eyes like the depths of the abyss, no thorny spiky tortured demon soul.

His heart twisted in his chest, and he couldn’t help staring at the human girl even though he knew it was bad manners. She was sitting a few feet away from him, but with his enhanced hearing he could hear everything as she relaxed with her friends (friends!) in the sun. He learnt that her name was Maria; she was in college, taking a course in psychology, and she hoped to be a doctor, in time. She had an older sister, with whom she had a strong love-hate relationship, and her best friend was the auburn-haired girl sitting next to her. He drank in the sight before him, lost in a fantasy where this really was Meg – this was her reward, another chance at life, full of promise, the darkness of demons and Hell and saving ungrateful Winchesters and angels wiped from her memory.

His intense gaze did not go unnoticed. After a while, her friend noticed him, and whispered something in the girl’s ear, giggling all the time. She snuck a glance at him – a brief moment when their eyes met sent a spasm of unreasonable hope through his entire being – but quickly turned away, whispering something back at her friend and shaking her head as she smiled that lovely half-smile. She didn’t turn back again, and Castiel thought she probably found his attention intrusive and didn’t want to encourage him. She didn’t recognise him – of course she didn’t. She wasn’t his Meg, his thorny beauty. He indulged in his fantasy a little longer, then stood up with a sigh. What a cruel joke this was, to show him this coincidental doppelganger at this exact moment! With one last backward glace at this Meg-who-was-not-Meg, he trudged off back to his life with the Winchesters.

 

“Hey, don’t turn around – but your creepy stalker just left,” Amanda told Maria. Despite her friend’s advice, Maria turned around to watch the stranger in the dirty trench coat leave.

“Thinking of getting his number, are you?” Theresa teased.

“Shut up,” Maria threw a handful of grass at her best friend. “But he _was_ pretty cute though.”

“Eww,” Amanda wrinkled her nose. “Really? Homeless men are your type?”

“Being a homeless person isn’t his fault,” Maria argued. “Aren’t people like that exactly the type of people who need help? The ones who have fallen through the cracks?”

“Listen to you, Miss Save-the-World,” Theresa said fondly.

“He had such blue eyes,” Maria said, partly to herself.

“You could see his eyes from here?!” Amanda said in amazement.

“I think we should go before Maria here decides to take him in like he’s a little lost puppy,” Theresa joked, getting to her feet.

“Are we going over to my place?” Amanda nodded as she held out a hand to Maria to help her up.

“Sounds good,” Theresa said. “We haven’t actually gotten down to doing any studying, like we were _supposed_ _to do_.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Maria agreed. “Hey, do you think we could call a pizza? I suddenly have the oddest craving for pizza.”


End file.
